


An Angel's Lullaby

by misha_collins_butt



Series: I Knew I Loved You [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Bang, Dean - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Destiel Fluff, Dildos, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gabriel - Freeform, M/M, Other, SPN - Freeform, Sabriel - Freeform, Sabriel Fluff, Sam - Freeform, Shower Sex, Singing, Smut, Supernatural - Freeform, This Does Not End Well, Winchester - Freeform, authors son!cas, bookworm!dean, castiel - Freeform, destiel smut, gay af, got a little Sabriel there, just a warning, librarian!Dean, sexshoppe!gabe, shurley, teacher!sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_collins_butt/pseuds/misha_collins_butt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>27 year old Dean has always had it pretty tough. He left home when he was 20, along with his beloved Impala, which his father still hasn't asked for, to pursue a career in English. He never looked back that day - drove to Cali to snatch his brother up from school and drove straight to NY, where Sam got an easy major in history and started teaching in the same class. Dean, the librarian, the charmer, the badass, is doing just perfectly fine on his own thank you very much until he meets this angelic guy, the son of his favourite author. This guy seems chill enough, right? Nope, Cas tears at Dean's heart strings, taking control of his soul and tugging him any way he wants - willingly, mind you. Cas, 24, turns out to be a run away, got the hell out of dodge the moment he turned 18, leaving behind his alcoholic, drug abusing father and his remaining siblings, Micheal and Gabe. He finally gathers the courage to talk to this cranberry of a man he noticed three years ago at his father's book signing in the library, and finds Dean is not just looks and swagger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man with the Ocean Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: dear readers, it is with a heavy heart and solemn eyes that I must say I cannot continue this fic. Have hope for the future, as I am prepared to someday come back to this one. But for now, time, and I, have changed - I don't feel the same inspiration I did, nor the motivation. I am constantly on the move, busy with other of life's activities, full of exhaustion. I simply don't have time in this moment to finish this. Maybe one day, when I'm old and bored and coming to the last chapters of my own book, I'll find it in me to add the last chapters of this book. I'm afraid I'm rambling. I just want to assure you, hope is not lost for this story. Please keep your hearts in your hands, I may one day find the encouragement to stab them once again. Until then, I bid you farewell. With love, KJ
> 
> HOLY SHIT IT HAS BEEN SOOOOO SO SO SO LONG SINCE I POSTED LAST I AM SO SORRY I AM STILL ALIVE. I've been so busy with work and it's exhausting me to the point that I have motivation for almost nothing else but I really have been working hard on this one and I think it'll be so good okay. Any this is unbeta'd just as all of my other works are bc I'm too lazy and untrusting to find someone else to make sure my works are all good, so all mistakes are mine. Enjoy!

"Excuse me," a gravelly voice suddenly fills the room and Dean's pen nearly goes flying, heart pumping. It's been at least two days since anyone's even walked through those doors and being alone with his thoughts isn't exactly a new thing but for that long, it gets to be a surprise when someone says something. He keeps it under control though, doesn't look up except a quick glance at a nice pair of khakis and a deep purple jumper.

He goes back to scribbling on the piece of paper where he's supposed to be filling out a request for another truck to come and take away a few boxes of older books, bring them to a charity or a foster house somewhere. 

"What can I help you with," he says, surprised that his own voice is bored considering his heart is pounding out a Jamaican beat and he's pretty sure he almost pissed his pants.

"I was just wondering if there are any books that you might recommend? I'm in the mood for reading, but not really sure what to look for," the man speaks at a low volume, as if there's anyone here to be disturbed.

Dean's intrigue is piqued though, so he pauses his doodles, knits his eyebrows together and looks up.

His eyes trace up the outline of his jumper, which wraps nicely around a narrow waist and a great chest, then leads into a white collared shirt, tan neck, a scruffy jaw that can't decide between chiseled and soft, some full lips that look like they might be chapped bit also look incredibly kissable, a straight-edge nose, and finally, two unfathomable blue eyes, shining bright as the Caribbean ocean that Dean is entirely too sure they are made of. His hair is a messy looking, bed-head-esque mop of dark chocolate brown and he smiles down at Dean as if he isn't the most attractive person Dean's ever encountered.

He's actually blown away by the fact that this man is inside a nearly failing library right now instead of out modeling a white pinstripe suit and blue tie from Men's Warehouse somewhere.

This time, Dean thinks he may actually piss his pants, but he refrains from any sort of urination onto cloth, as a mind-blowingly handsome man with some captivating blue eyes that seem to have stolen the sea is standing in front of his desk, asking about books.

He also refrains from exhibiting all of these passing thoughts on his face, because it feels like it's been a few minutes since he asked the question and the guy's probably starting to think Dean's some weirdo who can't speak under pressure.

"Library's a dying business, sir," he sits back in his chair and sets the pen down slowly. "Yeah, all the kids got their...electronic readers and...there are bookstores that sell books. Never out of stock of a specific book. Sometimes we get that; not having a specific book because all the copies got checked out...or we used to have that..."

The man stares down at him with such focus and intent, nodding along and knitting his brows together. Who is this guy?

"Nah, I mean, it's amazing that...someone wants a book so badly and loves it so much that they gotta buy it and have it forever," Dean continues, then leans forward again, grabbing a book to his left and wiggling it in the air. "Not so awesome for the library."

"That's so...intriguing...that you respect those other industries so much..." He replies, squinting, head tilting in a puppy dog manner.

Dean chuckles, setting the book down. Stares at the black cover as his smile slowly fades.

"Not much else I can do," he shrugs, shuffling through several books to find the one with the light yellow-beige cover, red outline and text reading Oliver Twist glaring up at him, and a small, square, painted picture of a boy in a hat playing at the edge of a wood sitting just above the title. "Once these places shut down, I'll inevitably drift into a bookstore, sign up to be a clerk or a stocker. 'Cause I mean," he flips the book over and opens the back page. Pulls out the name card from the pocket glued to the inside of the cover and examines it. "Yeah, a book ain't been checked out from here in three months."

He laughs and throws the book to his right, watches it skid across the table and come to a stop beside the red canvas hardcover with shiny blue letters indenting the words Of Mice and Men.

"Wow...so...I mean, how do you guys stay in business?" The guy is leaning ever forward, hands gripping the edge of the desk and arms stick straight as he balances himself over the books.

Dean smirks up at him.

"Ah," he scrubs at the back of his neck, cheeks hot, and looks away into the corner of the main entrance. "Well, charities? Mostly...and, uh, you know, school fundraisers, donations from the coffee shop down the street." He squints up at the giant skylight making up about 90% of the roof, thinking. "Oh, uh...this one guy. Some sorta bookwrite. Author of...damn, what are those things called...gaaahh...oh! An Angel's Lullaby!" Recognition passes over the man's face in clear abundance. "Guy's name, I'm still drawin' a blank on--"

"Chuck Shurley," the guy cuts him off but Dean is impressed. It's such an obscure book but he obviously knows it well.

"Yeah!" He points at the guy. "Yeah, yeah. You know him? I mean, his work?"

"Yeah...too well...why?"

"Ah, no...I'm just...just surprised, you know? Not a real popular selection," Dean thinks for a moment and it falls silent once more. Then: "You met him? He did a book signing here once. Not many people came, but..."

"Oh, yeah I've met him..." He doesn't elaborate, but Dean suspects it's because he just explained it for the guy, and it seems like it's making him a little uncomfortable anyway.

"Uh," he looks for something that might change the subject. "Well, to answer your first question..." He opens his mouth to continue but ends up chuckling and shaking his head. "Look, man, there's just too many books and not enough time. I've been coming to this library my entire life, probably read every single book by now. I mean, I can point you to some of my favourites, I guess, but really the only one off the top of my head and without me getting up is An Angel's Lullaby."

"Are you religious?" He asks suddenly and Dean's bewildered by the inquiry until he realises how obsessed he must seem with the book.

"Oh..." He breathes out a laugh. "Nah, that's...I'm an atheist, actually. I'm just...really into angels. Religions and...gods and deities are my thing. To be honest, I could probably list thirty Christian angels off the top of my head."

"Really," he seems impressed and Dean blushes harder. "How about...the four main archangels and...the Angel of Thursday."

Specific...and strange. But okay, he'll play along. For the sake of flirting.

"Okay...well there's Michael, the eldest son of God who was set to the task of casting Lucifer, second oldest, into hell because he claimed he could not love humanity as he loved his father. Gabriel, protector of humanity, present at the birth of Jesus Christ and the deliverer of the Holy news. And then Raphael, the healer of humanity. And...actually, my favourite, if I'm honest-" he looks up and watches the man's lips part, a blush crawling up his neck too, and he briefly wonders why, "-Castiel. Angel of Thursday, keeper of prayers said on that day." He smirks for a second before adding, "Always heard he was a real looker."

The man seems flustered, tugging at his jumper, pulling the v-neck away from his chest and adjusting his collar.

"Me too," he chokes out and Dean thinks it's entirely unfair how cute this man looks with a scarlet flush painting his cheeks and his hands not able to find a resting placing.

"I..." Dean starts, gazing down at his hand fiddling with the edge of a hardcover, nail scraping against the canvas. "I think I remember a few more books. Not real sure what you would like, but, uh..." He tears a corner off of the paper he was drawing on and scribbles down the titles and respective authors, then continues as he hands the list to the man. "Most of 'em are...classics...Little Women, Gone With the Wind, A Wrinkle in Time, Wuthering Heights...the _original_ and _best_...version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

The man smiles down at the list and then down at Dean, and Dean's heart leaps into his throat.

"Thank you," he says quietly and Dean's eyes flit down, small smile of modest pride lifting his lips.

"Don't mention it," he whispers back, gaze meeting the man's once more. Then he leans forward and takes up the pen again, waggling it between two fingers. He leans on his bent arm and says, "So, you plannin' on checkin' anything out today, sir?"

And, without blinking or missing a beat, the man replies with the most unexpected answer, letting the words drip from his lips like fuckin' honey when he replies, "Just you."

Dean is astonished at this guy's guts, but a brazen vocabulary and a cocky attitude is exactly the kind of thing that gets him going.

He opens his mouth in a shocked kind of smile, and shakes his head as if he's offended at the nerve of those words.

"I...don't even know your name," Dean says slowly, eyes twitching from the man's leg to his chest to his mouth to his eyes. When they meet, the man tilts his head with another squint, this one more challenging than curious. Amazing how he can squint in the same manner with just the slightest differences and change the entire composure of the movement.

But Dean doesn't let himself get too distracted by this ability, and soon encounters a moment of realisation.

The blushing, fidgeting, stumbling words when he talked about Castiel...

"You're name is Castiel," he whispers, astounded. "And you have four brothers." Then more realisation. "And you haven't met Chuck Shurley, you used to live with him."

Castiel pushes his lips out and looks down, scratches through the stubble on the edge of his jaw, nods.

"And I assume," Castiel says, squinting at the wooden triangle at the corner of Dean's desk and smiling, then continuing, "your name is Dean Winchester and you work as a librarian."

"Hey, I am not...a librarian," he protests playfully, grin growing on his teeth. "I am...a book obsessed...checker...outer."

Castiel laughs and Dean gives him a look for a moment before bursting out into his own fit of laughter at how utterly ridiculous that title sounds.

"I'm guessing that sounded better in your head?"

"It did," Dean nods and chucks the pen at one of the books, sitting back in his chair again and kicking his legs up onto his desk. He cranes his neck and reaches behind him, grips the back of another rolling chair, and rolls it over so it's facing him. Pats the seat and jerks his head. "Come on around." Castiel looks uncertain, sliding the torn paper into his pocket and pursing his lips, slight squint of his eyes. Dean chuckles. "Come on. I don't bite."

"Isn't that against the rules or something?" Castiel asks as he makes his way around the right side of the desk and through the opening in the side, in spite of his words.

"'Eah, mostly," Dean shrugs and pushes his lips out, then smiles. "But no one else is around, don't have any cameras, and-" he holds out a hand, "-I'm a rebel."

Castiel laughs wholeheartedly at this, grin huge and gummy - the most enchanting thing Dean's ever seen - and his head tilted back, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Dean notices a slight dimple in his left cheek and stores that information in the back of his mind for later, when he's having a rough day.

"What," he says, though he knows Castiel is laughing at his insanely stupid joking around.

"Nothing, you're just...really...interesting--"

"Interesting meaning...lame?" He squints and adds, "Dumbass, weirdo, bad amusement--"

"Hey, I genuinely laughed at that," Castiel points a finger at him, not hiding his grin.

Dean shakes his head, looks away, licks his lips. Things settle for a moment.

Dean plays with the hem of his black t-shirt, scratches his nails over the faded denim of his jeans, examines the familiar dark splotch of oil on the knee. He would dress nicer for work, but the last time anyone even walked through the doors was 48 hours ago, and he wasn't expecting any company today, either.

"Can't believe I'm flirting with the son of my favourite author," he mutters, reaching back over the back of his chair to snatch up another pen.

Castiel scoffs playfully, and Dean catches the smirk on his face when he turns back around.

"You call that flirting," Castiel quips, unbuttoning the wrists if his collared shirt and rolling the sleeves of both the shirt and jumper up.

Dean lets his brows drop and pushes his lips out in confusion. "Well...yeah..." Dean watches Castiel stifle a smile and glance down and away. "Why, what do you call it."

Castiel peeks up through mischievous, dark lashes and swimming eyes, lips parting in a secretive smirk.

"Honestly?" He starts, shifting in his seat and sitting back, settling his hands together in his lap. "A sad but sweet attempt to impress me."

"Oh, is that so?"

Castiel nods, grin growing across his cheeks. 

"And what would you consider flirting, mr. big-shot-I-know-exactly-how-to-woo-the-ladies?"

"Well, first of all," Castiel leans forward, rests an elbow against his knee, uses the armrest to balance himself, and points at Dean with raised brows, as if he's about to teach a lesson. "Sir. There's a difference between being laid back and being downright cocky. And you-" the corner of his lips twitches up very briefly, and his cyan blue eyes turn dark "-are neither."

"So what, _exactly_ ," Dean whispers, fingers a bit too loosely woven around the pen, teeth digging into his lip. "Do you propose I do about it?"

Castiel's gummy smile is printed into his teeth again and he shrugs a shoulder, bringing his lips down in an impressed bow.

"Well, that's the first step. Ask what you are instead of asking what to change. When you know, even if it's not true, even if it's only what another person sees, you can accept it."

Dean squints, leaning further back into his chair, pressing his index finger into the ballpoint, black ink tip of the pen and the other to the textured top of the cap wrapped around the end, pushing his tongue into his cheek and pursing his lips.

"Alright, fine. What am I?" Dean imposes, then grips the tip of the pen between his thumb and finger and adds, "To you. Smartass."

This earns him a short-chuckle and an approving nod.

"Well...I think...you're reserved. You act like you're king shit and like you know exactly who you are, like you don't give two flying fucks about where you're headed in life, or maybe like you've already accepted it. You act comfortable with yourself, but what nerd is ever actually completely cool with their existence?" He's leaning ever-forward and Dean's cocksure smile is ever-fading, eyes becoming wide with marvel as the man-who-knows-too-much continues. "I think you're unsure. You're scared and you...you hide things that you think no one cares about. You're upset and self-deprecating. Eyes of a guilty conscience."

Dean drops his gaze, first to the floor, then to the pen, still grasped tightly by his fingers which have fallen into his lap and which fiddle vapidly with the object, nail scraping at the black polycarbonate and over the white indents that spell out the company name.

"But," Castiel starts up again, voice soft and lilting. Dean swallows hard. "I think you have a lot to give. I think you have...maybe too much to give. Too much forgiveness, too much love, too much doubt, too much strength and care. I think you are the embodiment of generosity, but you don't take what you really need in return. And I think that can get dangerous, but I also think that nothing is ever really too much." Dean's eyes flit back up in time to catch Castiel's angling downward, past Dean's chair, through the desk, through the floor, staring wistfully at something intangible. "People are greedy. And you're too willing to give."

Dean searches the man's face for any sign that this is all some sort of joke, that he's being filmed or some shit, but all he finds is truth and wisdom and knowledge, and possibly a glimmer, just a glimpse in those blue eyes, of a bittersweet past, an origin for where these words came from.

"So...I'm John Bender and Brian Johnson's lovechild?" Dean inquires quietly and Castiel pushes his lips out and closes his eyes, suppressing a smile, before he starts chuckling softly.

"I was right!" He exclaims as he sits back in the chair, shoulders trembling with a silent laugh. "You like to cover up your pain with gay jokes and stupid references."

"Now, that, I can't deny," Dean nods and everything falls silent. He rocks his chair gently, side to side, left to right, fingers still fidgeting with the tips of the pen, his head tilted in thought. Castiel's mouth is pulled up into a ginger smile, his eyes faraway and swimming in themselves, in the past, in glistening memories and soft-edged, slow-motion, sunny-fielded dreams. "What about you?" He asks suddenly, voice crackling and ripping through the still air as a quiet question. Castiel eyes don't move but his smile grows slightly. "I mean...what do you think of yourself."

"Not much," he replies, head lolling to the side and back, eyes catching on the impotent, pathetic little piles of books scattered about Dean's desk. "I like books. Reading. Writing. Time-consuming, arbitrary activities which include my eyes scanning words on a piece of pressed wood?" He furrows his brows and Dean throws his head back in a genuine, full laughter that he hasn't experienced in a long time.

"I can tell you write. What do you write about? Like, schmoopy romance novels? Sci-fi thrillers? Action adventure futurism?"

"And I can tell you do a lot of librarian...ing..." Castiel squints and presses his lips together in the contrite afterthought but continues, nevertheless. "I'm into something called Big Bang Romance novels." Dean cocks a brow. "Get your head out of the gutter, it's not as sexy as it sounds. Usually. Bottom line, two people meet, hit it off, fall in love, and it either ends too happily to be possible or too sadly to be written. But I don't think my dad approves."

"You don't say."

"Yeah...he's...more into theology. I think the one book he's ever written that really ventures into the realm of fiction, or at least dips it's toes past the line, is An Angel's Lullaby."

"Which parts are real?" Dean scratches the pen across the bumpy plastic chair arm and watches the black ink run in splotches over the grey of the polyvinyl.

"Our names, obviously," Castiel shifts again, bringing his leg down from across his knee and kicking off from the floor so he spins in a circle. Dean watches with a strangely adoring smile. "It's funny that that's the part most people think is fiction. But, no. Mom was a Jesus nut and Dad is too passive to care, so we ended up with angelic names and weird looks from people who are less crazy. The only parts that're not completely true are the things like our address, the colours they painted our rooms, some of the dialogue that he added or got rid of in order to make the conversations more interesting or sensible - you know, just these really inane things..."

He trails off and he's staring at Dean with expectant brows, and Dean realises he's staring too, realises Castiel probably stopped because it's weird how attentive he is.

"Sorry. You're fun to listen to."

Castiel's cheeks paint themselves a thick fuchsia and his eyes drop to his empty palms resting uselessly in his lap, the lines becoming suddenly very interesting. Then they catch on his watch and widen and his head whips up.

"Well, if I'm so interesting to listen to," he leans forward, snatches the pen from Dean's hand, then takes the other hand and begins a careful scrawl across the back of it as he continues, "why don't you call me. And we can figure out a time to meet at the-" he recaps the pen and gently replaces it in Dean's hand "-coffee place down the street. But, right now, I have to go. College...and shit. Studying for a major in English takes a lot of time away from socialising."

"Sorry to keep you, I didn't--"

"No no no! It was..." His blush deepens and he stands, head down. "It was incredible to meet you. I really hope I can see you again."

"O-Of course," Dean's voice comes out stammered and soft, crackling with hope and fear and adoration, and Castiel smiles broadly.

"Great," he whispers back, then he's rushing around the side of the desk and out the front door and Dean is left to wonder if the entire exchange was even real or if his lonely, empty mind is just playing games. 

When he looks at the neat, black little numbers on his hand, he realises just how real right now is.


	2. The Cats, the Pigs, and the Deans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's built his life here, and there's no one to tell him he's a piece of shit, no one to scream at each other because their children are failures, no older brother who's inexplicably an extremist Catholic after being raised in a lenient Christian household to look down his nose at Cas for being who he is...for being gay.
> 
> Just himself, Bumbles, Barry, and Belle.

He can't believe he finally talked to that stupidly, insanely beautiful librarian after two entire years of pining. The first time he saw the guy was when he went in with his dad to the book signing but Dean seemed busy and a bit overwhelmed and Cas didn't want to add the stress of having to talk to some weirdo nerd to that pile of paper.

He never meant for the conversation to go as far as it did, and he expected the guy might blow some sunshine up his skirt but he never thought a librarian of all people could fake a blush.

It had to be fake. Obviously. No way the man actually likes him.

Cas is a total nerd. A poet and a wannabe book writer. Over-obsessed with the original Romeo and Juliet movie and all things guinea pigs. In love with climbing and sitting in trees and reading.

He's that guy who knows the slight difference between B-flute and E-flute cardboard and could tell you the exact density of a praseodymium atom down to the last one-thousandth of a gram per centimetre without looking at the periodic table.

He can articulate snarky comebacks at the flip of a coin and bring out at least ten different scientific studies at any given moment about why porcupines and their quills are important to the ecosystem, but goddamn everything if he can't think of a single way to lure that man in for real after he finds out that Cas is a nerd.

He plans on going back to the library today, though, because he visited his father last night and borrowed A Wrinkle in Time, then stayed up until five this morning in spite of having classes at nine, and he needs someone to talk to about it.

Or just someone to talk to about anything. He doesn't know. It was so easy to converse with Dean Winchester and it's only been twenty-one hours, but he's finding it difficult to start a conversation or spark his own interest with anybody else thus far.

He really thinks it's a given that when you find a soulmate, it's rather hard to find anything to do but think of them, and he's most definitely not saying Dean is a soulmate...but he'll be damned if the man isn't something shiny that's caught his eye in the midst of a battle between life and love.

Cas doesn't realise he's finally back at his loft until he feels himself turning the key in the door and hears the lighthearted giggle of the small blonde girl who lives on the other end of his floor, in flat one-forty-four.

He turns to wave a hello and she giggles again, waves shyly, then bounds off, pigtails bouncing in her wake. Cas smirks over his shoulder and turns back to the white door standing between him and the only real home he's ever known.

The house-mansion hybrid in Maine was never a home to him. Nor was the house before that in Pennsylvania. Or the small cottage they had to abandon back on the barren planes of Amish land in northern Illinois when he was nine or the apartment buildings even before that in the big cities of Minnesota. And especially not the place he was born, in Casper, Wyoming, where they had to live in a halfway-house until he was three and his parents finally scraped together enough money to make it out of the place they'd grown up and fallen in love and married and raised five children.

This loft, with its modern-looking furniture and the bed in the floor-to-ceiling-windowed living room because bedrooms are for chumps and its stainless-steel, silver-appliance-filled kitchen attached directly to the living den; this loft, with its incredible view of the city lights that look like the twinkling stars have fallen to earth at night and the congested traffic far below; this loft, with its lived-in feel and top-floor silence, and its six by four foot balcony in addition to easy access to the roof of the building. This loft...this is his home. It has been since he finally escaped that house when he was nineteen and drove directly here, to Sullivan, New York, in his father's 2007 Audi A6, which Chuck still hasn't asked about.

He's built his life here, and there's no one to tell him he's a piece of shit, no one to scream at each other because their children are failures, no older brother who's inexplicably an extremist Catholic after being raised in a lenient Christian household to look down his nose at Cas for being who he is...for being gay.

Just himself, Bumbles, Barry, and Belle.

Speaking of which, Belle prances up to his leg and tilts her head, rubbing it across his shin and continuing to the end of her dark brown, ragdoll-kitty tail. Castiel stoops to scratch her fuzzy head and brush his fingers through her ever-shedding chocolate coat.

"We should give you a nice brush this weekend, huh," he pouts at her and sighs, giving her a final scratch behind the ear as he stands. He spots Barry, the Persian cat he found beaten and left to die in the alleyway behind this building, lazing in the midday sun, sprawled across the white couch, soaking up as much heat through the giant window into his white and caramel spotted fur as possible.

The damn cat is such a hassle and he hasn't the foggiest why he decided two long-furred felines was a good idea, but it pays off when he's stressed and has no one to talk to, especially if Charlie is unavailable. And Barry was on the edge of death. How could Cas not give him a caring home with food and sun and mostly enough room to scamper around. He sometimes lets them both loose on the roof because of the enormity of it (and the cats, for that matter) and because Barry, especially, gets restless.

Cas drops his satchel into the recliner and plops down next to Barry, hand immediately finding his soft, warm belly and kneading the fur.

"Hope you haven't been thinking about eating the guinea pig, Bear," he says, to which the reply is a broken meow and a quick adjustment so Barry is closer to him. He smiles at how the big kitty tries to be discreet about it and pats his belly before pushing up and standing to find something to drink and check on the pig.

He opens the refrigerator and snatches the large plastic pitcher of homemade tea, sets it on the counter, then turns his head over his shoulder and wrinkles the bag containing kale. As expected, Bumbles screams a squeak, and Cas laughs, setting the kale, parsley, and carrots on the counter. He grabs the vegetable bowl and fills it past the brim, and then strolls over to the big cage in the corner just beside the bathroom door.

Dropping the bowl safely on the ledge, he scratches he scruff of Bumbles' neck, petting down the sleek, black and blonde striped fur and whispering, "Did Barry try to get in the cage again? Huh? Did Barry try to eat you, little bee?"

Fittingly to the name, Bumbles takes off around the cage in slow motion, popcorning every now and then before returning to the ledge and hopping up to eat her daily treats. Cas leaves her to her crunching and wrestles his phone out of the side of his satchel, finding that an unknown number has texted him.

He squints, then beams down at the screen glaring up at him when he realises it's Dean.

_Hey, it's me. -D_

"Me," Cas laughs and taps his response into the keyboard.

_Hey, I thought it was Dean, not me. -C_

He can imagine the man breathing out a half-laugh at that.

The reply is a bit slow, but Cas supposes he's working right now, and the text was sent an hour ago. Thankfully, the reply does come, and Cas thanks his lucky stars that Dean isn't mad at him for taking so long to respond.

_Real funny. Uh, I'm not so great at the whole texting thing...mind if I call you? -D_

Cas feels his lips quirk up further and he types in the affirmative.

Seconds later, his phone is buzzing in his hand and he taps the green circle then raises it to his ear.

"Hey, book checker-outer. Check out any books lately?" He greets Dean with a smile and listens to the warm-hearted laugh on the other end of the line.

"Uh, does it seem like we get that much business, smart ass?" Dean answers with a question and Cas grins, coming to rest in front of the window and resting his elbow on the arm he crosses over his chest.

"Obviously not. Must feel nice to have company, huh?" He pauses and his ear remains empty, cold, waiting to be filled with Dean's beautiful voice. And then he speaks again.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," Dean half-whispers and Cas' smile turns sad. "But now it can't be just anyone. You showed up and made me smile so now the only company I can have here is you." 

Cas laughs, whole-heartedly, throwing his head back slightly, cheeks flaming with pink fire.

"I'm...not sure how to respond to that, Mr. Winchester."

"I learn from the best," he replies and Cas knows he's talking about him. "Castiel Shurley."

The blush spreads to his forehead and his nose, and he can feel it in his lips.

Cas has never heard someone say his name like that, and he hates that his mind wanders to what it might sound like when they--

"You can call me Cas, you know," he cuts off his own thoughts and reminds himself to stay on track with this.

"Fine. Cas. I've got a proposal."

"And what might that be, Mr. Winchester?"

"Well," Dean chuckles through the phone and Cas can feel it vibrating through him, to every corner of his body. "First of all, Cas, you can call me Dean. I'm not a professor. Mr. Winchester is my brother. And, second, how would you like to see me again today."

"Both of those things sound fantastic," Cas tilts his head, smiling softly out the window, and then at his reflection. Belle meows at him from the back of the couch and he reaches out to scratch behind her ears again. "All I need is a time and a place, _Dean_."

"How's five tonight sound? Just come back to the library and we can walk to the coffee shoppe. Or something," there's a pause where Cas can tell Dean wants to speak again, so he gives him the room. Finally, he continues with, "Ever heard of The Roadhouse? Nice restaurant just around the block from The Atomic Bean. My uncle and his wife own it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Cas stops petting Belle to hold out his hand toward the window. "That's your uncle? Bobby Singer..."

"Yeah?"

"I've known that man since I moved here!" He exclaims, giving an incredulous half-laugh and grinning into the mouthpiece. "I can't believe this. He and Ellen basically adopted me. I used to work nights there as a bartender with Ash. Jo had a huge crush me."

"Oh, man, I can't imagine her reaction when you had to let her down," Cas can hear Dean thinking and then his voice picks up again. "You...did let her down, right?"

"Dean, I'm gay. I've known since I was eleven. Of course I turned her down."

"Okay. Sorry, I was just--"

"It's okay...um, I hope you don't mind me saying that damn, that girl is feisty."

Dean's life-affirming, God-given laugh fills the speaker again and Cas chuckling along, too.

"Oh God, you have no idea. Try growing up with her around. But she's sweet when she wants to be. Independent. Clever. You know...she's my cousin. Love her..." Dean's voice breaks on that last part and Cas can imagine him scratching the back of his neck. "So, anyway. You down for dinner there and maybe...I don't know, a movie or some cliche bullshit?"

Cas shakes his head and replies, "Of course. I'll see you in a few hours then?"

"Yeah," Dean stops and Cas can tell he must be biting his lip. "Uh, yeah, see you."

"Hey, Dean?" Cas whispers before he has the chance to hang up. 

Dean takes a moment before whispering back, "Yeah?"

"No goodbye is forever."

And with that, and the silence on the other end, Cas hangs up, staring wistfully out the window of his home into the depths of the grey-building, black-window, blue-sky city.

The one where he's sure he's falling in love.


	3. Rivers and Beer, the Liquor of Cheer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date night? Fate night 

Dean is astonished at the beauty of the words that were just uttered to him, and he feels the truth of them ringing in the deepest chamber of his mind.

What Cas just said is like professing your undying love to someone then dropping the mic and walking offstage.

Bright colours dance around in his periphery on the television screen as he holds the phone absently to his ear, not realising he's doing it until the static of an empty line pours into his ear drum. He lowers the phone and presses end, lurching forward toward the couch.

Sam, who already lazes at the other end of it with a beer in one hand, Mary's fur bunched up in the other, and a foot up on the coffee table, raises his brows in a question as he looks up at Dean.

Dean squints at him, and plops down, sinking into the cushion next to the dog's feet, eyes fixed on the local college football game presented in HD on the giant flatscreen the two of them figured they had enough leftover money for. Which they did. Still do. They're both making surprising amounts, since university pays more than state for Sam and Dean's been taking shifts at that coffee shoppe, The Atomic Bean, and at Benny's garage, where he originally started working because he owed Benny, but now works as a mechanic that Benny insists on paying.

He's thought about putting himself out there just a little more, because even with the triple jobs, double shifts, and fundraising work, he's still falling just short of what Sam makes each month, and Dean would never say it aloud, but he feels bad about it, like he should be making as much so he can pay for things equally without worrying about it. But Sam doesn't need to know about the money anyway. He also doesn't need to know that what Dean has been thinking of doing is taking up a shift or two a week at the strip club.

Not as a bartender, either.

He may not be able to mix a martini, but he can move his hips like fucking Shakira and if that's not a talent that stupid club needs, he doesn't know what is. The male floor is newer, too. Added to the original building three years ago, about seven months after gay marriage was legalised, in honour of the outstanding LGBTQ+ community in Sullivan.

It was a huge business pick up and Dean figures he's attractive enough.

Sam's persistent staring starts to get to him and he turns, clenching his jaw once because he knows Sam knows that means he's annoyed.

"Who was that on the phone?" Sam inquires, takes a sip from his beer, and sets it down near his foot, then looks back up at Dean, hand scratching at Mary's ribcage.

"Uh...just, uh...you know, some guy I met--"

"Fucking finally, you ass! It's been a year since you and Benny broke it off. I was starting to think you were still holding out for him," Sam shakes his head and claps Dean on the shoulder, wide puppy grin gleaming in the afternoon sun filtering through the cracked curtains in yellow dust.

He leans back down to grab his beer and Dean opens his own.

"Benny...was not the right decision. I thought I...I thought the way I liked him was more than friends but it didn't work out and I'm apparently more able to accept things than you think, Sam."

"Dean, I didn't mean it like--"

"I know. And, anyway, what about all the random chics I pick up at the bar? Have you seriously not noticed?"

"Oh," Sam looks down and to the left, taking a big gulp before looking back up. "I've noticed. Have you seriously not noticed me leaving every fucking time you do?" Dean smiles with his tongue between his teeth and takes a long pull from his beer. "Of course, you probably wouldn't, with all the noise you make."

Dean chokes halfway through his swallow and dramatises his half-fake coughing fit as he slams his beer down on the coffee table, holding his fist to his chest.

Sam laughs and Dean throws the beer cap at his face, at which point Sam laughs even harder, holding his stomach, eyes closed.

Dean hasn't seen him like this since Jess was around. Brady only made it worse, but Sarah is treating him right so far and this is what he gets to see for giving her a chance.

"So who was it, really," Sam speaks softly after a long sentence of silence and Dean smiles absently at the telly, dragging his nail down the water-slick brown glass of his beer bottle.

"Name's Cas. Castiel, like the angel," Dean blinks down at his lap, biting his lip. "Uh, actually he's...he's the son of the guy who wrote An Angel's Lullaby."

"What?! Are you shitting me?!"

Dean grins and looks up at his brother with so much honesty in his eyes there's no way Sam can call bullshit.

"No fucking way!" Sam laughs and tugs on Dean's shoulder to pull him into an awkward kind of side hug, Mary whimpering between. When he pulls back, Sam slumps into the back of the couch and beams at the television screen. "God, I bet that was a happy surprise, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah it was...it was...oh, hey, just a reminder, I've got my shift from two-thirty to five today because Raphael couldn't make it in. Somehow, he's the best man at someone's wedding, so he'll be gone until Monday, up in Monroe. Some sort of planning shit."

"Someone likes him enough for that?"

"Dude, yeah. Even said something about how he gets to take a private jet to fuckin' Nevada. Las Vegas, Sam. Raphael, keeper of the books, is gonna go party in Las Vegas."

"Well, I guess it's not really different from you. I mean, who would guess? The cocky-as-all-shit former model now a...um, 'quiet and humble' librarian..." Sam trails off and Dean cocks a sceptical brow at him. "Ah, yeah, nevermind about that."

Dean chugs the last half of his beer and leans forward to - hopefully - stand without slightly buzzed incident.

"Well, I'm off to do librarian things," he announces, heaving himself out of his nest in the couch cushions. Mary objects to the shift and rolls over on her back, and Sam, smiling down at her adoringly, rubs at her blondish-white belly. Dean gives him a look and Sam smirks at him. "Have fun with your girlfriend."

Dean drops the empty bottle into the recycling bin that Sam insists on keeping around and walks out to the hallway with Sam calling sorely behind him, "Sarah's the girlfriend."

"And Mary's the bitch!" Dean shouts back just before he slams the door shut and makes his way down the front steps to the Impala.

\--

Dean finds at least five pens scattered around the desk and very deliberately places each one back into the deep green and soft caramel colour-block ceramic pot that Kevin, one of Sam's more artistic students, made for him.

Dean's kind of popular around the university, both with the teachers and the History, English, and Art students alike, especially the women...and, of course, the few men who are comfortable with blatantly ogling other guys, whether they be straight or not. Because even straight guys are at least a bit intrigued by Dean Winchester, the not-so-mysterious librarian who knows everyone from the corner of McGraw avenue to the centre of Cherrywood street and helps out constantly around the community with everything from church bake sales to free car washes to hanging out with the pre-school kids during arts and crafts to singing and playing guitar for the folks at the Oakwood Village senior centre.

But there're very few he'll save the time of day for and Cas happens to be one of the ones he will.

His eyes wander to the clock fastened to the wall above the entrance. Four-fifty-three.

Seven minutes until he gets to see his saviour again.

Okay, saviour might be a bit dramatic, but Dean has to admit, he'd been lonely, actually, on the verge of another break down, and he's grateful that Cas walked into his life when he did because Dean thinks Sammy wouldn't have been able to handle another spiral downward.

The first was when he was eighteen, two years before Sammy ran off on his own eighteenth birthday, and John was never really there, in an emotional sense, so he wasn't much help, and Sam had to take the reigns for the first time in his life and lead Dean back to the right path all on his own. Dean still feels guilty as hell for that one. The second was after Sam left when he turned eighteen, and Dean was by himself this time, in a booze-littered, whiskey-stained house, and John did nothing about it, again, so Dean didn't feel bad when he finally got his shit together enough to make some money and take off with the Impala. The third was right before the night Benny saved his life, and Sam, yet again, took the wheel and steered Dean's life back toward the track.

He can't do that again. The toll it's taken on people around him...

His eyes flicker up.

The clock reads four-fifty-nine.

Dean purses his lips inward, tapping impatiently at the polished wood, eyes wandering over the hills of books and skimming the colourful shelves.

He does everything he can to restrain himself from jumping out of his chair right then and just waiting outside for Cas; he hums Black Sabbath, smooths a few dog ears out of the pages of an Ellen Hopkins book, makes sure all the pens' caps are on the right end.

It feels like an eternity, but finally, _finally_ , at five 'o two, the door slides open and in struts the author's son, tiny, sweet smile pinned to his lips, head tilted down and hands shoved in the pockets of a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. His sweater is black and buttoned at the elbows, allowing Dean to be acquainted with what seems to be a set of incredibly detailed black wings exploding from under his shirts and flowing gracefully down to wrap around his wrists, and his button up is a lighter shade of violet. His shoes are nice - formal black oxfords with a dotty kind of pattern on the toe.

His hair is beautifully bed-headed and suddenly his perfect white smile is shimmering down at Dean and Dean realises he's staring like a total fucking asshat and making an idiot of himself but Cas doesn't seem to mind, only blushes and turns his head away slightly.

"Uh, Cas, eyes--I mean, hi...hey, Cas," he stumbles over himself and Cas bites his lip in a silent giggle. "Oh, sorry, I should...probably close up shop..." Dean mumbles and he struggles out of his chair, walks around to the front of his desk, and stands in front of the other man, eyes surveying his slight scruff and the pastel pink in his cheeks.

"Hello, Dean," he replies and Dean nods, whispering a small 'yeah' before realising all he said was hello.

"Uh, right, hi, hey," he tries and Cas grins, eyebrows dancing up.

"You said that already," Cas says very carefully and Dean screws his eyes shut and drops his head, before looking back up and offering a soft, apologetic smile.

"I've just gotta lock the doors, turn off the lights, usual business and then we can go, huh?" He mumbles and Cas nods, following him to the door where Dean flips all four of the light switches down, then heads through the door and locks each as he walks through the entryway and then out.

Dean catches his first glimpse of Cas' car and raises his eyebrows at the quaint dark blue, twenty-fifteen Honda Accord parked beside the Impala.

"Pretty modest for a guy who can afford a few Ferraris and the entire continent of Australia," Dean quips, nodding at the car and Cas blushes again.

"It's safer," is all he gives in reply and Dean thinks he can understand that.

They stroll down the sidewalk in a comfortable silence until they come to the bridge that arcs over the river vein that leads to the Atlantic, where Dean stops and tugs on Cas's sleeve to make him slow down for second.

"I want...to clean this water up someday," Dean annunciates each word, then nods as he looks out over the garbage ridden river. "It's been littered with debris from the boat crash back in '05 and I don't think I've seen a single duck or goose or really any life you should see around a river here."

"That's a big ambition. You planning on getting people together?"

"Probably...there's enough people who care, I know that. But it would have to be approved by the the city council and the last time I tried...they wanted to, obviously, but they don't have the money right now."

"Well...if it's any consolation, when you do get around to it, I'll be glad to help."

Dean smiles at the rushing water, then at Cas, and they keep walking.

\--

The Roadhouse is a bit crowded because it's Friday night and more people are willing to get drunk when Labor Day is on Monday and they're able to work the hangovers from tonight and tomorrow night out of their systems before then.

Ellen beams at the two of them, waving them over to an empty booth near the bar.

"Dean! Boy, I should smack you with my spatula," she starts as they approach before she seems to notice Cas for the first time. "Cas? Cas and Dean." She squints. "Tell me this is a date or I might actually hit you." Cas smirks. "Both a' you." His face drops.

Dean chuckles and hangs an arm around Cas's shoulders, smirking at Ellen.

"Uh, actually..."

"Oh my God...this is great!" She pauses with wide eyes, and her smile grows mischievous. "Just wait 'till I tell Bobby."

Dean rolls his eyes and this time she does smack his shoulder with her towel.

"Don't forget, boy, you moved here because of us," she warns and Dean smiles down at her with loving patience before she gives in and pulls him away from Cas and into a hug. "Damn, I missed you."

"I was only gone for a week, Ellen," he laughs but she squeezes harder and then releases him, before shooing them into their booth and running off to find her husband.

Cas is shaking his head across the table and Dean lets one foot slip in between Cas' to get his attention. Castiel's head shoots up and he stares incredulously at Dean's soft smile.

"Cas, you don't have anything to do Monday, right?" At this, Cas shakes his head, and Dean smiles wider. "Wanna get wasted?"

Cas squints for a moment, looks down and off to the right, peeks back up through his lashes. Smirks. Nods.

Dean offers his tongue-biting grin just as Bobby storms through the door and toward their booth, and his smile falls.

"Shit--"

"Son, I could throw you off that bridge into the river. What's'a matter with you? I ain't seen you or heard from you in a week," Bobby speaks sternly, his fatherly charm working its magick and Dean grimaces at the truth of what he's saying, baring his teeth and looking down at the plastic-shined table beneath his folded arms. "Goddamnit, come 'ere."

Dean stands carefully, head still hanging and eyes cast downward at Bobby's intimidating anger. But the old man pulls him into a ferocious hug and he hugs back with a pat on the back and smug smirk.

"Sorry, Bobby. Got caught up with a few things."

"Ah, it's alright, son. Now sit the hell down and order somethin', 'fore I kick ya both out," he grins and turns to the other man, sliding out his pad of paper and pen. "Hey, Cas. Ellen told me this is some kinda friggin romantic date, and I just want you to know, I love the living hell out of this boy, but if he hurts you, I will beat him senseless."

"Hey! Aren't you s'posed to be more protective of me?" Dean objects and Bobby raises his brows at him.

"Watcha like, Cas?"

"I'll just go with a burger and fries. And uuuh...how about a beer to start. Thanks Bobby."

He gives a curt nod as he scratches the order into the paper and turns to Dean.

"Usual for you?"

Dean purses his lips squints at Cas, contemplating. It's not that he doesn't want to get the same thing, it's just that it's kind of a special night and he wants to mix it up.

"How 'bout a steak instead. I'm payin' anyway," Dean replies and Bobby cocks a brow but writes it down anyway.

"Beer for you too?"

"How'd you know," Dean drawls and Bobby looks like he wants to smack him upside the head.

"Don't sass me, boy, or I might charge ya. Full price."

Dean beams at his uncle-turned-father before he turns around to Rufus calling him over for a refill.

Dean watches him go, then smiles shyly across the table at Cas, ducking his head when Cas smiles back.

"Are you, Dean Winchester, cockiest flirter I have ever met, actually being shy," Cas speaks up softly, and Dean's head comes up. He stares longingly across the table, remaining silent for a long time before he responds.

"Just kinda hard to look at you without crying, honestly."

"Am I really that ugly," Cas tries to suppress his smile and Dean realises they've been slowly leaning further and further across the table and they're now only centimetres apart.

Dean's eyes flicker over Cas' face, his slightly quirked brow, his smiley-squint, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners and his smile lines dip into his cheeks; he watches the way his cerulean eyes sparkle and crash just like the ocean and the way his smile fades into parted lips when Dean's eyes skim over them for a longer-than-necessary period of time.

"You're the most beautiful man I've ever met," Dean whispers, meeting Castiel's eyes once more. He averts them, the blue splashing with the way he moves, but he doesn't pull back. Dean lifts a hand to touch his cheek and a white ceramic plate is dropped to the table without malice.

Their heads whip around simultaneously and Bobby is staring down at them in slight contempt.

"It's only the first date, Dean. Don't ruin it," he says as he slides the other plate down in front of Cas and sets a beer before each of them and then he's walking away, shouting across the bar at Victor and Lillith to either untangle themselves from each other or go get a room. Victor responds by flipping him the bird and Ellen smacks his hand down before Bobby can see.

Unsurprisingly, Dean knows almost everyone there, and people are definitely talking.

"They've only seen us here seperately," Cas says under his breath, dipping a fry in the mound of ketchup Dean purposely sprayed out to match the mountain of fries. "They're probably all wondering how we met because I don't think we've ever been here at the same time."

"Nah, I woulda noticed you, first thing," Dean mumbles, stabbing a piece of steak with his fork, and bringing it halfway to his mouth before it dawns on him what he just said. He pauses, his mouth open, and his eyes flip up to Cas, whose brows are raised in amusement and intrigue.

"You like little old me that much?"

Dean doesn't answer, popping the steak into his mouth and chewing slowly, eyes diverted toward the outer edge of the table. He can feel Cas' eyes on him, though, so he looks back up as he swallows and catches a starry-eyed Castiel, corners of his lips pulled up, one higher than the other, cheeks glowing in the soft yellow light.

"Promise I won't tell if you say yes," Cas teases and Dean rolls his eyes but he complies to the taunt and joins in.

"And how can I trust you, Mr. Shurley? I only just met you," he quips, gauging the other man's reaction.

Cas sticks out his hand across the table, around the beer bottles and plates, and makes a fist without his pinky.

Dean furrows his brows at the apparent offering, then raises the outer edges of his brows at Cas in quiet concern.

"Pinky promise?" He asks in bemusement as he eyes Cas.

Cas lowers his gaze to his offered hand, sticking out his lips in a kind of half-purse, mulling it over before raising his eyes again.

"Angel's promise," he replies with such efficacy that Dean's hand develops a mind of its own and he hooks his pinky with Cas's in reticence.

"Okay..." He says, nodding. "Okay. Angel's promise."

\--

As they pass back over the bridge, Dean's hand finds Cas's and he links their fingers together, still looking out at the cars speeding by and the stars bubbling in the deep wine sky, eyes traveling up the height of the billion story buildings, painted black into the dark canvas of the night, lights flickering in and out of view as they stumble along, a little less drunk than originally planned, hand in hand and matching smiles.

Cas doesn't object or do anything to indicate that he's uncomfortable, so Dean takes his chances, wades further into the water and tugs Cas a little closer, so their shoulders brush as they switch steps.

They return to the library without much more incident than Cas kind of tripping over a raised slab of pavement, and Dean catching him with his hand before he could get too far.

They stop between the two cars, turning toward each other, and Dean grabs Cas's other hand, holding them both low so he can step in closer.

He presses in as far as he can and, impossibly, Cas does too, their hands finding their own ways to each other's waists and shoulders, Dean's arm slipping around Cas' mid-section, and Cas's sweeping up to fold around Dean's neck.

Their foreheads must be magnetised because they immediately fall together, and their eyes slip closed and they breathe each other in like the oxygen their lungs burn for, lips so close and so far and they just stand there, the dangling moon their only audience.

"We didn't go to a movie," Cas whispers and Dean's lips pull up in a lax smile.

"Sorry 'bout that. We could go next time...?"

"Are you asking if there will be a second date, Dean Winchester?"

"Maybe," he chuckles softly, thumb rubbing circles into Cas' back.

"Then yes," Cas replies, heart pounding out of his chest and into Dean's. His pulse beats through his fingers which grip the back of Dean's neck. "A second date would be wonderful."

"So until I bother you with texts all day tomorrow, I guess this is is goodbye?"

"No goodbye lasts forever," Cas says and Dean can't see it but he can hear the smile in Cas' voice.

But neither of them move, and Dean just really wants to know what those lips feel like.

"Would it be so wrong if I kissed you goodnight?" Dean whispers, voice breaking, a shattered prayer to unknown ears, and he swears he hears Cas mutter an amen.

Dean feels the rocking of Cas' head as he nods and all the air leaves his lungs in one exhale and he's leaning in, forgetting how to breathe, and Cas is leaning in, probably breathing just fine, and then their lips are brushing and Dean's heart pounds out a beat of its own and Cas breathes out a little sigh. And they're kissing again, softly, lips moving in tandem, slow and sweet and just a whisper in the still air. Dean tilts his head even further, nudging into Cas, asking permission to deepen it, to taste him, the way he breathes and the colours he speaks.

Cas lets him, lets him run his tongue across his teeth, over the roof of his mouth, tangle with his own and dance between them. He laps at Cas' taste, wishes he could feel this way forever, or even just for the rest of the night, but knows there are boundaries and rules not to be broken, words to be left unspoken in the soft breeze that spills across the roof of the Impala and blankets them in the sleep of a small city.

When they pull back, they breathe each other in for another minute, and then they part ways, and Dean leans back against the Impala as he watches Cas climb into his own car, watches him turn out into the street and speed off into the distance.

He hangs his head back and breathes a silent thank you to whatever might be listening, because he may be an atheist, but damn if something's not watching over him right now.


	4. Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smuts 

Belle hops up onto the bed and pounces on Cas' legs, then climbs up to his chest and promptly begins kneading the blankets, her booming purr swirling through Cas's ears. He groans and lifts his hands to the edges of the pillow, then folds them around his head and screws his eyes shut.

He knows it's the asscrack of dawn on a Sunday morning even though he hasn't opened his eyes because Sundays are one of the days he lets the cats out onto the roof around 9:30 when he's made his coffee and warmed up a muffin. But, apparently, the damn cat has absolutely no sense of time of day and she's started waking him earlier and earlier to get outside. There are definitely mice up there, and sometimes birds - which, if Belle does manage to catch one, he makes her release - and he supposes it's instinct - early bird catches the worm and all that bull.

And maybe closing the cats into the empty bedroom until he wakes up has crossed his mind, and, at this point, is not unprecedented. But he has a short story due Tuesday anyway and he hasn't gotten past the first two daunting sentences, so he also supposes this is an okay wake up call. Only for today though. He drops his hands back to the sides of his head and stares contemptuously up at his darling spoiled cat.

She's got her eyes narrowed in utter bliss, claws working their magick into the thick white blanket he decided it's gotten cold enough to finally sleep under. She seems to almost be smiling smugly back down at him but he reaches up and scratches her tiny head, then lifts her up to move her to the other side of the bed, her claws catching once the comforter.

He slides out from between the sheets, squinting weary-eyed at the bright green numbers reading 6:21 across his digital clock.

Cas glances back at his cat, who lies twisted, bottom half of her body on its side and top half on its back, head tilted completely upside down as she stares contentedly up at her human, and he sighs outwardly, muttering, "You owe me two hours of sleep, cat."

His mobile buzzes out an alarming tone, telling him it's the second time it's alerted him to a text message.

He leans over and snatches it up before standing and wandering out to the kitchen to make some coffee. He closes a dark roast pod into the chamber, places his bumble bee mug under the spout, and presses start, then turns to lean against the counter, crossing his legs beneath him and balancing with one hand behind him as he slides his screen open and reviews the message.

It's from Dean. Dean Winchester...texted him...at 6:19 in the morning...to ask if he's busy today.

He contemplates for a second before deciding it's still early enough in the morning that he can admit how much of a dork he is and get away with it.

_Well my cats need to get out on the roof but after about 8:00 I'll need something to use to avoid my homework. Unless you wanna come over now for shitty coffee and a cold morning on a cement roof. -C_

He waits for a reply, tapping at the back of his phone with his index finger, pushing his lips out to the side and turning with a patient eye to the coffee machine and its burbling noises. A buzz in his hand.

_You know, it's funny, I've kinda been craving cold, hard cement against my ass. -D_

_Hardee-har-har. So is that a yes? -C_

Dean takes even longer to reply this time and Cas gets anxious. The coffee machine wheezes and he absently pulls his mug out from the opening and sips at the steaming roast. Barry waddles across the threshold of the kitchen cautiously and takes his time getting to Cas' leg before _bruowww_ -ing up at him in a baritone meant just for the Persian species.

Cas looks down at him boredly and sips at his coffee again, folding his arm over his chest so the mobile is resting against his ribs and his elbow against his arm.

"You might be meeting someone new today, Barry," he speaks in a normal voice, as he often does when having conversations with his cats. They're rarely one-sided either. The animal lets out a scratchy mew and sits with his back straight up and his fluffy tail curling around his back legs hunched beneath him. "Oh, don't be such prick. Dean's a lovely man. Beautiful in every way imaginable. And he majored in English. Farther than I've gotten."

The cat tilts his head, gives Cas a judgmentally questioning kind of meow and Cas rolls his eyes

"I suppose you're right, Barry. I did spend three and a half years on short stories and a commission for a 300k novel. But that doesn't excuse me from being tardy for the party."

His phone buzzes harshly against his ribs and he jumps, pulling his arm away from his body.

_You live at that humongous Coresworth loft building, right? -D_

_Well I wouldn't say it's humongous. Only nineteen stories. -C_

_My house is one, surrounded by a bunch of other houses that are also one story. It's big to me. -D_

_Hey I'm not at fault for you living in the suburbs when the centre of the city is so obviously a much better choice. -C_

He chuckles to himself and turns around, reaching up to grab a small plate from above the microwave. He opens the fridge and leans over, balancing on one foot instead of walking the three feet to stand in front of it, and reaches in blindly to grab his muffin. The fridge slams closed and Barry jumps a bit, but is too lazy to move anywhere, and Cas throws the muffin in the microwave to heat it up.

His mobile buzzes again and he sets the timer, then turns back to the phone on the counter, sucking crumbs off his thumb and leaning back against the counter again.

_What floor? -D_

_....nineteenth. -C_

_Jesus, how'd you manage that? Aren't those, like, penthouses or something?Thank whoever for elevators. -D_

_I suppose they are. So are you actually coming or are you--_

Another text interupts him _._

_What number -D_

_I suppose they are. So are you actually coming or are you just yanking my chain. And 145 -C_

There's a knock at the door at the same time the microwave beeps. Cas tosses his phone on the counter and crosses to the door, just past the threshold to the living room/bedroom.

Dean.

Dean is standing front of him, looking up with raised brows and a kind of moronic, cocky grin.

"Yes."

"You're here," Cas says lamely and Dean looks to the right, tilting his head down in agreement.

"Yes," he says again and Cas stares at him, jaw slack because Dean's dressed in yesterday's clothes and unshaven whiskers, a cherry blossom smile and sparkling forest greens, keys jutting out of his front pocket, hand scratching the back of his neck, wrinkled, dark grey Black Sabbath tee tightening across his chest with the lift of his arms, other hand shoved in the vacant pocket of his oil-stained, tattered jeans hanging precariously low from his hips.

Cas realises he's been staring for a while when Dean's cheeks light up like Rudolph's nose and he takes a much need gasp of oxygen in and steps aside.

"Sorry, uh...come in."

Dean swaggers in, eyes glancing around the all shiny white plastic and chromed up steel of the flat, and the salmon pink sunrise exploding through the window kind of dribbles into his eyes and shows off the little flecks of orange and blue that Cas never really noticed before.

"So, um...I hope you like animals because...well, I have a lot," Cas closes the door and follows behind him then remembers his muffin in the microwave and rushes over to open it and set the warm, doughy breakfast on his plate, wiping the melted chocolate chips that that stick to his fingers on the dishcloth.

"I'm into cats...I mean, I'm allergic, but they're cute."

"Uh, well, do you want some coffee? It's...artificial...probably not very healthy but I'm too lazy to make real coffee in the mornings so..." He gets a glimpse of the clock. Only 6:47. And Dean is inside his loft. Talking to him. Drowned in the glory of the waking sun.

"Yeah, sure, I--what the--"

Cas turns just in time to catch Dean startling and looking down at his leg, suddenly wrapped in a scarf of long, chocolate brown fur.

"Oh...hey, kitty," Dean stoops low to scratch Belle's chin and she closes her eyes, lifting her little head, her dense purr floating across into the kitchen.

"That's Belle," Cas introduces her, pocketing his mobile and turning back to grab another mug from the cabinet. He replaces the coffee capsule and presses brew once more, then turns back around to find Dean cross-legged on the white carpet with Belle splayed on her back in his lap, horrendous purr reaching maximum volume.

"Hi, Belle," Dean's voice is a few octaves higher and he's watching her face as he uses both hands to scratch either side of her neck. "You're very pretty...oh hey, her eyes are green."

"Yeah," Cas starts, leaning back against the stove this time, coffee pulled comfortably against his chest, clad in a white t-shirt. "Yeah the veterinarian said it's rare to find a dark-hair in the Ragdoll breed with so much pigment in the eyes. Usually blue or at least a more pastel-y green."

Dean sneezes twice and Belle decides that Just Will Not Do and prances away to hop up on the couch and bother Barry.

"Sorry," Dean calls after the cat and she looks back at him with slanted but forgiving eyes.

Cas chuckles under his breath and when he looks up again Dean his grinning at him from the floor. Cas purses his lips inward and lets his eyes fall to his coffee.

"The sunrise makes your eyes kind of teal and purple-y, did you know that?" Dean speaks softly, hands resting in fists on his knees. Cas feels the blush crawl up from his chest and he turns back around just as the coffee maker finishes, grabbing Dean's coffee and standing still for a moment to compose himself.

He turns back and wisps ungracefully over to Dean, handing him the brew.

"The other cat, the one blending in with the couch - that's Barry, but I call him Bear for short. And the guinea pig is Bumbles...mostly because she's the closest I could get to a pet bumblebee."

Dean laughs warmly, throwing his head back, eyes closed, chest shaking with it, and Cas knows he's falling in love.

"I couldn't tell whether you were obsessed with bees or just a four year old in a hot body," Dean chortles, eyes falling on the mug cradled in Cas's hand.

"You're insufferable," Cas rolls his eyes and grabs his sweater from the hanger, noticing Dean didn't wear one over. "Need a jacket or something?"

"I lived in northern Wisconsin for three years, I can take a September morning in New York."

Cas smirks, cocking a brow and moves back to the kitchen.

He grabs his muffin, still kind of warm, then goes to the door, knowing the cats will follow.

"Let me get that for you," Dean stands with inexplicable elegance and hurries to the door, opening it and stepping aside.

"Why, thank you, sir," Cas offers a small smile, stops to think, then starts forward again and gives Dean a peck on the cheek as he passes. "Belle! Bear! Come'n. Let's go do pest control."

"Follow the leader," Dean laughs, watching the felines run after Cas and then closing the door and following behind them.

Cas climbs the access stairs, rusty wrought iron echoing in the narrow cement staircase, then pushes open the twisted metal door, shoulder to the oh, so familiar bullet hole, the residual of some inane gang fight from before his time here, ignoring the fact that the handle is non-existant because it's been like that since a few months after he moved in, when some parkour thief tried to break in (though, he didn't get far before Millie's dad, a tall, burly man with a history in police work and martial arts and the lightest blonde beard Cas has ever seen, caught the robber in the hallway and took him down in one punch).

Dean watches the cats race all the way across to the other side of the roof, about 30 feet away, and skitter to a stop at the other end.

"Careful, you two!" Cas calls and takes a seat in his beanbag chair that he feels safe enough leaving up here all the time because after the incident with Millie's dad and the thief, the building manager hired some guys to put up a fancy fence around the perimetre of the the roof. Looks pretty to the people far below but the story didn't exactly make the news so no one knows that it's really for keeping out people who can jump from rooftop to rooftop without their stomachs dropping when they look down.

Dean takes a seat beside him on the cement roof and Cas frowns, scooting over.

"Beanbag is actually meant for two. Get your ass up here," he says, picking at his muffin. Dean doesn't say anything for a long time but then he's collapsing into the stuffed fabric beside Cas and the blue-eyed man smiles over at him.

"Why get a beanbag for two when you only come here by yourself?"

"I like to bring rando's from the bad up here and fuck them every night," Cas says with a straight face and takes a bite of his muffin. The look that crosses Dean's eyes is perfect and Cas grins delightedly. "Kidding."

"You ass."

Castiel grins wider.

"No, actually, sometimes the cats wear themselves out before I finish my coffee, and I used to have a smaller chair but they would fight for room on my lap. Solution? Get a bigger chair so one can sleep in my lap and one can sleep next to me until I finish," he explains, every ounce of Dean's attention glued to him, not for the first time. His eyes sparkle in the golden orange of the sun, just now heaving the last of its enormous body over the horizon.

"Makes sense," Dean mumbles, watching Cas carefully unpeel the muffin wrapper.

"Want some?"

Dean nods, and Cas splits the muffin in half, and for a while, they just chew in silence, squinting in the rays of the northern state sun, eyes following the cats' meander around the rooftop.

"So I was thinking..." Dean says after a long time, and Cas startles a bit, though his voice is soft. "Since you need to avoid doing homework and I need to make it seem like I'm actually at the garage because I was not about to tell Sam I was going over to the house of someone I just met...you into art? Like, paintings and sculptures and shit?"

"I don't paint, myself, but I enjoy viewing art, yes," Cas replies, setting the plate on the roof and picking up his coffee instead. His other hand brushes Dean's. He wants to hold his hand again. That felt nice. But they were half-drunk and it was 10:00 at night because they stayed at the restaurant way later than planned.

"Well there's this incredible place I found, Montclair art museum, 'bout an hour and a half drive out to Westchester. Doesn't open 'till noon so we wouldn't have to take off for a while yet but...a'know...just a thought."

"Are you asking me out on a second date, Dean Winchester?"

"'Eah, I guess the first one was just so damn great I needed a second."

Cas tries very hard to conceal his idiotic grin but when Dean looks over at him, he can't help but show some teeth.

"You never even kissed me though," Cas teases and Dean narrows his eyes, setting his mug down beside him.

"You are not a allowed to tell me I'm a bad kisser. You might'a been drunk but damn if I don't know when someone's enjoying a kiss."

"Maybe..." Castiel's voice drops an octave, husky, now, like the last whispers of a sunset before the sky fades to blue and all is still, "you should prove that to me."

Dean's plush lips part in surprise and anticipation as Cas reaches up to cup his neck and leans innocuously forward, and Dean doesn't even hesitate, just pillows his lips against Cas's and laps at them with such gentle intent, slow and languid just like the other night. His scruff tickles Cas's chin and he smiles into the kiss, weaving his fingers between Dean's.

When they pull back, only centimetres apart, Cas gazes into those damnable green eyes and smiles wistfully, planting one last quick kiss against Dean's lips and then leaning into his arm and resting his head on Dean's shoulder. Dean untangles his hand from Cas's, replaces it with the other hand, and loops his arm around Cas's shoulders before resting his head on top of the mop of dark hair.

\--

It's 7:53 when the cats become unamused with the rooftop and start scratching at the metal access door.

They tread through the door, after the bored cats, of course, and Cas strips out of his pullover and tosses it across the room to his bed, where it lands in a heavy, sad black mass.

"Your bed is in your living room?" Dean inquires sceptically, and Cas wonders why he didn't notice before but doesn't dwell as he sets to work taking out Bumbles' morning carrots.

"Yeah. I mean, there's a bedroom, but it doesn't have floor to ceiling windows and I figure bedrooms are for losers anyway so I just kinda left it empty, save for the cat boxes and a computer."

"I have a bedroom."

"And you live with another person. I'm saying you're a loser if you live by yourself and you still have a bedroom. Doesn't make sense to me. There's no one else around to disturb you or watch you while you sleep. No point in it."

"You make a very compelling argument," Dean replies, shifting behind Cas who stands in the door of the fridge, pushing the carrots back into the drawer and closing it.

"You scared of guinea pigs?"

"No, why?"

Cas hands him three mini carrots and points to the cage. "Mind setting those on the ledge for her?"

"'Course."

Cas smiles in thanks and turns back to close the fridge door. He hears the creak of the hinges as Dean opens the top of the cage and then the clack as it hits the frame when he closes it, and Cas pours out the rest of his cold, forgotten coffee and sets that and Dean's already empty one down next to the sink. When he pivots on his heel to face Dean again, the other man is already watching him, eyes stuck to his arms and the admittedly too-small shirt wrapping itself snugly around his chest.

He's had it since the middle of junior year in high school and he just can't stand the thought of getting rid of it in spite of the hole in the bottom right near his hip and the slight rip in the seam of the left sleeve. It was a gift from Hester, his cousin. She spent five dollars on a pack of four of them when he let it slip that he didn't have any that fit him any more. She was only 14 but she scraped together enough money doing odd jobs for the neighbours to somehow get to the mall and find him an entire package of white t-shirts. He didn't have a job yet, either, was too socially awkward then to even really talk to anyone outside his family. Whether it's gotten better or worse over the years, he can't tell.

So, long story short, he can't bring himself to throw it out.

And Dean is still staring at him, probably at the black wings wrapping themselves like gift wrap around the majority of both his arms. Or maybe at his pecs pushing their way up like hills through his shirt.

He doesn't seem to realise Cas has turned around until Cas clears his throat and Dean jumps, flicking his eyes back up to Cas's bright pink face.

"Sorry, I...are those wings?"

"Uh..." Cas coughs unnecessarily. "Yeah. Yes. I read somewhere that angels' wings can range in colour from white to black to any colour or gradient mix of colours in the known spectrum of colours. 'N when I researched Cas a while a back," he mumbles, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, "I couldn't find much but what I did see in his personality was like...this warrior who fell in love with humanity, not as a whole, but...humanity wrapped up in one little human. I saw him as this enormous flow of energy but in his human form, he was a protector, a kind soul, confused about some things, but he could fight, and he was intimidating...electric storms and thundering rain. And I saw him as...this darker element of the earth, and so I thought: black wings."

"That's...beautiful..." Dean whispers, hands stuck in his front pockets, head tilted to the left, and a serene kind of faraway gaze in his eyes.

"Do you...do you wanna see the rest of them?"

Dean seems to consider this for a moment, eyes sweeping across the length of Cas' body, pausing at his chest again, before flipping back to his face.

He nods tentatively, lips peeling open as he shifts.

Cas blinks down and slowly wraps a hand around the hem of his shirt, then pulls it up over his head and drops the fabric to the counter behind him. Dean's eyes scan his chest, his abdomen, skim across his waistband and his brows raise slightly.

Castiel hesitates, then turns his back, inviting Dean to get a closer look at the black on black feathers, interlaced with barely-visible strands of cyan to match his eyes. Cas feels Dean approaching slowly, then a warm finger just-ever-so-slightly hovering over his shoulder blade.

Dean must decide to go for it because Cas suddenly feels three fingers tracing down the height of the feathers, which fall dismally, aimlessly, gracefully down to his lower back, tips of the lowest wings touching his waistband and creating a nice arch over the enochian letters across his lower back.

Dean becomes bolder, pressing all four fingers into Cas's raised skin, tracing back up, all the way to the top of his right shoulder, and down his arm to his wrist, where Dean slips his hand under Cas's hanging onto the counter and intertwines their fingers once again. He uses his other hand to trace the letters at the bottom of Cas's back, and a shiver slams up his spine, an unwarranted, breathy type of moan escaping from between his parted lips.

Dean spreads his whole hand out across Cas's lower back and slides it out toward his hip, lets it snake up over his waist, ghost across his ribs, up to his shoulder. Dean's hand finds the right side of Cas's chin and turns the shorter man's head to the left to face him, eyes already half-hooded, pupils blown to the night sky and breathing Dean's name in clouds of sunshine.

Cas presses their lips together, finding that perfect pace they set that first time, and how could they have known? Known exactly how their lips work together? As if they've already loved eachother for a thousand years before this; as if Cas were the moon and Dean were the sun and they snuck across the solar system to make out behind Mars each night; as if they were eternal, ethereal beings, dancing, waltzing between the blank spaces in the abyss of the oceans, exploding from the surface of the water to breathe and kiss on tan land shaded by the green of Dean's eyes.

How could they have known?

Cas is half turned around, breathing hard, but not as hard as Dean's cock against his hip, Dean's fingers pressing into his jaw. He turns around completely, bending his arm so it hangs from his shoulder, Dean's right arm now looped around his neck, holding up Cas's hand and he kisses Dean with everything he's got, pouring in everything - the heaviness in his heart and the words he can't seem to say, late summer days of wilting sunshine and green trees at their peak, flowers opening their arms and stretching up to the sunshine of an early spring, dew drops trembling on the end of a blade of grass after the first rain of the season and whiskey ridden nights in the attic of a distant, blurry home, in a bleary, grey memory at the back of his mind, tornadoes ripping through plains of daisies and hurricanes crashing and receding in a city of lights and life.

He gives everything, all that he can to Dean, in this kiss, to prove that he's worth staying for, no matter how much Cas doesn't believe this, himself - godamnit if he can't make Dean believe.

The librarian reaches down and wraps a hand around the back of Cas' thigh, then the other, and lifts him so easily it should be a crime. Sets him down on the counter. Touch and tug and teeth scraping skin. Dean's hands dizzying across Cas' tattoos - skimming down from the tops of his shoulders where the feathers fall inelegantly from his left shoulder in a sash across his chest, down to where they gradually turn into tattooed rips in his skin; scraping over where the rips show tattooed ribs, carved in with enochian and cracked and bloody; finding the angel warding symbol scratched into the inside of Cas' right hip, and tracing the purposefully scribbled lines, then pressing down in the centre of it, making Cas grind his hips into Dean's hands.

"Is this okay," Dean breathes, lips moving hot and wet across Cas' neck, teeth nipping lightly. "I don't...I don't wanna move too fast for you."

"Just. God, fuck, Dean, I don't care, I don't care, do what you want. Jesus," his voice breaks as he presses into Dean's warm hands, calloused and worn from a life full of loves lost and smiles unfinished, laughs undone, tears rolled up into a paper bag and saved for the middle of March when the flowers yawn and the trees sway and there's nothing to do but wait for the rain to turn into drops of sunlight.

Dean's hands, bruised in a way that allows them to be deft, follow the lines of Castiel's hip bones, sliding over the top of his waistband, dipping beneath it.

Cas goes in for another kiss and someone knocks at the door.

He stares Dean in the eye with the most effervescent contempt for whomever is standing on the other side of that slab of wood.

"Are you...fucking with me," he mutters and then calls, "Hang on! Be just a second."

Dean backs away, reluctantly, to allow Cas to hop off the table, and Cas struggles to pull his shirt over his head as he moves toward the door. He peeks through the peephole and when he finds that there seems to be no one standing there, he opens the door with a huff.

Millie.

"Oh, hi, sweetheart. Uh, did your dad--"

"Daddy didn't send me over. I'm just looking for Wilhalmyna," Millie, the little girl from the other end of the hallway tips up on her toes, then back on her heels with her hands twisted behind her back, waiting patiently as she stares up at Cas, who smiles.

"Well, I haven't seen any dogs running amuck lately, but I promise I'll tell you if I see her," he grins at the olive-skinned child, with her beautiful, black, curly-que pigtails and pastel yellow tunic, paired with white leggings with black hearts spattered across them, ankle-high socks with lace blooming from the tops, and her sparkly blue light up Sketchers. A yellow, green, and pink butterfly-flower design rests across her stomach, and the sleeves of her shirt-dress are striped yellow and white. He spots her purple and pink sparkly hair ties and smiles wider.

"Pinky promise or angel's promise," she asks very sternly and Cas looks down at her with wide eyes and raised brows.

"Angel's promise," he nods, hooking his pinky with hers and shaking hands. "I also very much like your hair ties. Built for a warrior, right?"

"Sparkles, away!" She wails and giggles, then pumps her fist and takes off down the hallway. Cas watches her go and just before she closes the door, she calls, "Thank you!"

Cas closes his own door quietly and turns back to Dean, whose smile lights up as bright as the sun.

"Stop smiling, Winchester, you're gonna blind me," he quips, dragging himself across the carpet to flop down into the unmade bed. He sighs, dropping a forearm across his forehead and closing his eyes. "I'm sorry about that. She comes over to talk every now and then. It's funny that her dad trusts her here alone but then he does know I'm gay so I guess...sorry."

"Yeah, it's fine, man. Don't worry about it. I, uh..." Dean seems to lose his trail of thought and Cas uncovers his face, and shifts his head to see Dean, who stands with his own head hanging and a hand rubbing at his arm. "I gotta admit, I got no clue what I'm doin'...I mean, of course...I've been with guys before but...but I never actually...I mean the farthest I ever really went was a handjob and that was a one night stand, so I guess what I'm tryin' to say--"

"Dean," Cas cuts him off and sits up, hands resting between his splayed legs. "I understand. You're a little scared, right?" Nod nod. "Don't be. It's new but...you trust me, don't you?" Nod nod nod. "Then...come here."

Dean ambles forward and stops in front of Cas, letting himself be looked over and inspected by Cas's adoring eyes.

"What kind of music do you listen to?" He asks suddenly, which has the intended effect: Dean squints, seeming startled, looking off to the side, but he answers anyway.

"I don't know. Classic rock I guess. None a' that new age screamin' type shit. I mean, like, Def Leppard. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, ACDC...The Beatles, for sure. Journey, even. They got some nice songs. Why?"

Cas simply smiles lightly, stands, tells Dean to not move, and walks over to the armrest table that doubles as a bedside table, reaches under the top tier, and lifts up his old turntable, still in beautiful condition with a built-in side drawer just for holding records. He pulls it open and slides out one of his favourites, carefully places the record under the needle, and starts it up.

Robert Plant's ringingly glorified voice comes in with an animalistic sound, and then turns into words.

 _I can't quit you baby_.

Cas turns around to face Dean, a husky look in his hooded eyes.

_So I'm gonna put you down for a while._

The guitar kicks in and he swings his hip, then starts forward slowly, strutting in time with the music, slinking back to Dean to the rhythm of the words.

He sits back down where he was before, then pulls Dean down on top of him so Dean's legs bracket his hips.

_I said I can't quit you baby._

Cas's lips immediately find Dean's and his arm around Dean's waist yanks him in as close as possible, so Dean his hunching and craning his neck to kiss Cas and his crotch is pulled flush against Cas's.

_I guess I gotta put you down for a while._

Shirts are stripped and thrown haphazardly over shoulders, and now there's sweat-sticky skin against skin and Dean's hips grinding impulsively into Cas's body, both men breathing hard and fast.

Cas doesn't even think twice, only hooks his thumbs under the the waist of Dean's jeans and tugs, and Dean sits up enough for Cas to slide them down to his knees. Dean rolls off for a moment to shove them the rest of the way down, and Cas manages to shed his grey U.S. Navy sweats before Dean climbs back on top of him.

_Said you messed up my happy home._

Dean's nails dig into Cas's back as Cas slips the waist band of Dean's pants down slowly, then surfaces to admire Dean's length.

Dean's little whimpers and his squirming are what drive Cas to flip them over and pull the boxer briefs all the way off, then his own, and take his sweet time admiring Dean's body, his tattoos, brightened by his pink flush. The praying angel crying blood tucked nicely around the inside of his right forearm, the inexplicable red handprint staining his left bicep. The fiery curls of an anti-demon possession tattoo on his upper left pectoral. His shiny black '67 impala surrounded by twirling grey smoke formatted over his left-side ribcage. Two letters that Cas presumes are his initials - D.W. - inked into his lower left hip, made to look like a carving of some sort.

_Made me mistreat my only child.  
Yes, you did, babe._

Cas' hands meander softly down Dean's sides, over his shivering hips, eyes catching on the other man's leaking cock, bouncing with the way Dean's moving. Cas crawls up over Dean's body, dips his head to kiss him again, hard, hands wandering in and in and in, Dean groaning beneath him.

He moves to nibble on Dean's ear and he whispers, low and honey-dripping, "You might have no clue but I know...a lot." Dean gasps, hips coming up off the bed, his cock brushing Cas' for the shortest moment, and then he's wriggling up again, trying to find that same friction. "See? Don't be scared."

"Fuck," Dean breathes it like an electric prayer, visiting unknown ears that listen for his voice only.

_Said you know I love you, baby!_

Cas lowers himself and rolls his hips, cocks grinding together mouth-wateringly, lips glued to Dean's neck. Dean's twitching up, up, mouth hanging open, breaths faltering and gasping, one hand tangled in Cas' hair, the other scraping down Cas's bare back.

Cas moves unbearably slowly, teasing, loving the way Dean jerks up every time he pauses, but Dean looks like he's almost in pain and Cas has been waiting a long time to see how that beautiful face looks when he's coming, so he reaches down and does his best to wrap his hand around both of them between their sandwiched bodies.

_My love for you I could never hide.  
Oh, you know I love you baby!_

Dean's harsh breaths become delicious moans, and his hips move of their own accord, pushing up into Cas's hand as his nails dig pink crescents into Cas's back.

"Dean, open your eyes," Cas gasps, and when Dean doesn't, he kisses the blonde man's mouth open, tongues twisting, and pulls away, coming to a stop, knowing Dean is right on the edge. "Dean, I wanna see your face when I make you come."

"Shit! Cas, please," Dean pleads as he opens his eyes, which look unfocused at first but find Cas' heated face quickly. Cas smiles faintly, kissing Dean once more and rolling his hips again.

_My love for you I could never hide._

Dean's back comes up off the bed and he moans out a curse followed by Cas's name, hips moving in sync with his.

Cas's teeth graze the top of his collarbone, up his neck, bite maybe just-this-side of too hard behind his ear, making Dean's back arch even further, his blunt nails somehow almost drawing blood.

_Oh, when I feel you near me, little girl,  
I know you are my one desire._

Dean's jaw is slack but he manages to get Cas's name through his lips one more time before he's coming, thick white spurting up onto his belly, running down over Cas's hand. His eyes are open and wide, but obviously unfocused, staring up at the ceiling.

Cas works him through it and settles when all that's left is Dean's hot breath on his face and his nails slipping from his back.

_When you hear me moanin' and groanin'_

The music plays, lonely and clawing in the still air and Dean seems to regain some brain cells enough to lean up and kiss Cas's lips lazily, hands finding Cas's legs and running up his thighs to his hips.

"Can I try..." Dean's voice peters out against Cas's lips but Cas knows what he means and he rolls off, collapsing into the bed on his back. The bed dips beside him as Dean adjusts himself into a position where his mouth can easily fit over Cas's dick and at the first drag of Dean's closed lips up his shaft, his pounding member jumps. He's so close, he probably won't make it past Dean's mouth opening, if he's honest.

_You know it hurts me deep down inside.  
Oh, when you hear me moanin' and groanin' baby_

Dean hesitates, then fits his lips over the tip of Cas's cock and Cas groans as he slides down, taking him in impressively far before coming back up.

"Holy shit," Dean breathes over the head and then his tongue darts out and across the slit before he dives back down and drags up again.

Holy shit is right. Cas is mewling, hips uncontrollable, pressing up into Dean's warm, wet mouth. He tries to get a hold of himself but he can't catch his fucking breath and he has no idea how Dean is so good at this because he seems to know exactly how to make a guy go crazy without having any intention of doing so.

_You know it hurts me deep down inside.  
Oh, when you hear me, honey, baby!_

Cas can't handle this, the way Dean's so good but so sloppy simultaneously, his first-time mouth drooling over Cas's cock, going a little too fast, but it's beautiful and it's just right, and Cas has such a kink for inexperience so he lets Dean do what he wants and tries to hold himself back from fucking into his throat.

_You know you're my one desire!_

Cas comes with Dean's name dripping from his lips like the spit dribbling down his cock and his come from Dean's mouth.

Dean's pretty eyelashes flip up to Cas and he looks him in the eye as he swallows the load in his mouth, tongue slipping out to lick the remainder from his lips and chin, and Cas wishes he could come again because holy hell is that hot.

He forces his lips into a smile and drops his head back to the mattress.

_Yes, you are, oh my_

"I needed...to take a shower...anyway," Cas huffs, and Dean chuckles against his hip, lips pushing into his skin.

\--

Cas leaves the shower running and walks back to the cracked door, opening it and leaning against the frame, watching Dean, still bare-naked surrounded by messy sheets, his hair mussed and his face completely undone.

"Want to join me?" Cas asks, and Dean's head pops up, cocking a brow, then knitting both together and sitting up. "Not like that. Just...you're covered in come, I'm covered in spit, and it's a little less than fun to shower alone."

Dean pulls his lips between his teeth. Thinking. Pushes himself out from his dent in the bed and rethinks it last second, pulling the sheets up around his waist.

Cas tilts his head in silent question before realisation dawns and he smiles to himself.

"Dean, I don't care," he shakes his head softly and Dean regards him with demur until Cas tilts his head the other way, eyes expectant, and Dean drops the sheets, and they bunch up around his ankles. Cas's eyes don't stray from Dean's face as Dean steps over the fabric and makes his way across the living room to the bathroom.

Cas pulls him in and then into shower, and they face eachother, tentative smiles, hands on hips. Cas drags his bottom lip between his teeth.

"So you sing?" He inquires shyly, to which Dean responds with a light flush.

"Yeah," he chuckles, eyes falling. "Yeah, uh...why?"

"Sing for me," Cas requests and Dean's eyes flash with astonishment before he drops his head.

"Which song," he mumbles and Cas almost doesn't catch it over the spray of the liquid crystal across the linoleum floor.

"Anything," Cas replies lightly, tracing loose fingers up Dean's speckled back, around his shoulder, and back down.

"Okay...uh..." Dean lifts his head, looking to the rounded corner of the shower for an answer before reframing Cas's face with his gaze.

Then he starts singing. And every other noise drops out, like a ribbon bunching gracefully across the floor after being released from a hand. And there is only Dean's whiskey gravel voice, velvety soft, painting a sunset across the afternoon sky.

"Summer time has come..." he begins softly, voice hitching once. And then: "and the trees are sweetly bloomin'...where the wild mountain thyme...grows around the bloomin' heather..."

Cas's eyes never leave Dean's face, watching the man get caught in a net of emotion and passion, hitting every note with the goddamn hammer of Thor. He reminds Cas of pink and purple spotted fields of tall grass beside a purple, snow-tipped mountain; of a white lace dress, rippling in the breeze, sharp brown eyes and soft brown hair; of a single willow tree, bent by a soft breeze, hooded by silver sheep clouds and yellow tinted blue skies.

His voice echoes through the room, and bounces off even the most recess walls of Castiel's skull, shooting through his brain and out his mouth a puff of disbelieving air.

The song is over too soon and Dean stands there with cheeks as pink as the wildflowers in the song, lip between his teeth.

Cas doesn't say a word before shooting up and slamming their lips together.


	5. Art of the Evil and For the Precious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art museum tears :((((

His arms feel like home, if Dean ever knew what a home felt like. He never truly had a roof and four walls when he was younger but his brother was his world and they never really needed much more than the clothes on their backs and the five cents for bread in their pockets.

But this is something he feels he has experienced only in one other way and that was having a stable area in which to sleep, to eat, to laugh and cry and live.

Castiel feels like home, and the sharp golden blades of the sun's rays slice across his face as the navy Honda rustles and sways down the winding, jade framed backroad. A tree stretches so far down that the tips of the branches tickle the sunroof for a split second and then it's back to a half-tunnel of sun-soaked green and flashes of brown and red and yellow smattered ground as the first signs of winter cripple the fallen leaves.

The trees above may be green but in sparse, spasmodic patterns.

Cas is like the flower spared through crisp fall breeze and wilting, winter ice and flurry, blooming twice as bright and blue as the rest of the field. Cas is like the flames of a fireplace licking at the rustic granite bricks boxing him in, framed by polished, deep mahogany slabs of wood, with a shelf overhead topped by an old clock and red-bird, doily trinkets collected over the years. Cas is a like the last sip of bourbon before the glass falls to the dark carpet and a drunken smile rises on his lips as he rolls across the bed to drag soft lips up a lover's neck.

Cas is home.

\--

Two wrong turns and several unnecessary rest stops later, they're hand in hand strolling across the shivering grass toward a white sandstone building, complete with several pillars straddling the gaping mouth that is the entrance.

Seven or eight people mill about outside, cigarette smoke billowing into the frigid air from their mouths like steam from a factory, teeth chattering and windbreakers quivering in the light breeze. Two turn to watch them enter but most don't give them a second glance, or a first for that matter.

A chubby-cheeked, red-nosed little boy with crumbs from some kind of cracker snack smeared around his lips waddles past them in a quick fashion and not far behind him, a tall, pantsuit-ed, high heeled, no-nonsense muscle-mum rushes to catch him before he disturbs an oil painting of a monochrome purple cubism forest.

Dean rolls his eyes and Cas's faint smile as a heartwarming thought bubbles up in his stomach.

Cas must want children someday, no matter how misbehaved they may be.

This is okay with Dean.

"Wanna take a look at cubism first? I'm a bigger fan of Renaissance Impressionism myself, but you drove, so lady's choice night," Dean says distractedly, unfolding and flipping through a building directory.

Castiel stabs him in the side with his elbow and he chuckles.

"Actually, there's something I wanted to show you."

Dean give Cas a sideways glance, but refolds the directory and shoves it in his pocket. He holds out his bent arm and grins.

"M'lady," he whispers and Cas gives him a scolding look but wraps his hand around Dean's elbow and leads him to religious realism.

Dean nearly trips over his own feet when a particularly chilling painting catches his eye - a tall, pale, seemingly malnourished and gangly man with strikingly contrasted features like stark black hair, slicked back away from his stern face and high cheekbones, and a black suit with a red tie and a ring with a bloodstone for a gem nestled on his right middle finger. He stands over a small pile of limp, grey human bodies, black cane in one hand, helping him to stand regally over what Dean assumes is his murderous doing, and in the other hand, a glowing white orb of energy, floating just above the man's papery palm, but seemingly unable to escape. Dean realises with a chill that this man must represent a humanisation of death. The orb in his hand - a human soul.

Dean turns away from the painting.

Cas slows them to a stop in front of a generally blue-ish painting, with five figures in various poses nestled into the dark clouds that line the background and foreground. The figure in the centre is tired-looking, frazzled older man with curly dark hair and striking blue eyes, the eldest of what appears to be four other men with similar features, and his gaze is fixed directly on the viewer, hands bent low with palms outturned and gallant strength despite apparent exhaustion. The second oldest - sporting dirty blonde waves down to his shoulders and eyes to match the eldest - stands pretentiously beside the older one, looking down and to his right with emotionless resolve that seems to be crumbling a bit at the edges. The figure the second oldest stares at is the third oldest, who has wavy, sandy blonde hair, chopped short, and eyes as grey as the cloud he's splayed out on. He appears dead, skin sallow and grey like his eyes and the bodies in the painting of Death. Crushed, it looks like, by something large and powerful, his limbs sprawled in a way they would not be bent on a living human.

The fourth man is also dirty-blonde, with hair like the second eldest's. That's where the similarities end. This man looks distressed, defeated but still fruitlessly fighting. There's a tear on his cheek, and stubble peppering his chin. He stands farther from the eldest man, as if he's revolted by him, and his hand is out reached to the third oldest. This man looks like he's in the middle of crumpling to his knees, pleading with his higher power to bring the third man back.

Dean is baffled by the entire scene until his gets a good, hard look at the fifth and final man on the far right of the painting, dark, messy hair weighed down by a rain cloud which seems to only be burdening him as a singular being, and soft blue eyes downturned to the fourth man, hand gripping his upper arm apparently in an attempt to drag him away from the mess. A single, calm tear stains his face, but he seems utterly unmoved by the death and the agony and the otherwise chaotic picture in front of him.

Cas.

"Cas?"

"Yes. This was painted by Gabriel. This is why you haven't met my family."

"Who...who are they?" Dean inquires tentatively. He isn't sure whether he wants to open this can of worms. Even from the outside it looks like it could get squirmy quickly.

"Gabriel, the one I'm holding, is my brother, the second youngest, after me. The one on the far left, Lucifer, is...was the second oldest. And Michael. The one next to the guy in the centre acting like he's some God or prophet or something. The one in the middle is my dad. This was the original cover image for the hardcover books, but...my dad's manager said it would be too...powerful...to be on the front cover of anything. So he sold it to the museum and made yet another fortune."

Dean processes this. He still has no idea what's going on in the painting, but at least he knows who it is. He decides that's not really enough information, because, as much as he doesn't want to push Cas into anything uncomfortable, he's a curious person. Just like anyone would be.

"So, what's going on here?" He blurts, but Cas seems just as unperturbed as he does in the painting.

"One of the many jarring events of my life depicted in a photo people won't think to look at twice," Cas replies bitterly. He scoots closer to Dean as he continues, "We've...mostly moved on. Mostly."

"I mean, what's going on with Lucifer. Why does he look like that. It's a little violent for a book about childhood."

Cas frowns.

"He died in a drunk driving accident," Cas whispers, hand squeezing tight around Dean's elbow. Dean lets him. Cas continues, even softer, "He wanted to be an actor."

Dean swallows hard, and nods slowly. So that explains the tears. He must have meant more to Cas and Gabriel than he did to their oldest sibling and father. Dean realises with a sinking feeling that that's the reason this couldn't be the front cover. Childhood brings happy endings. There are no deaths in childhood. There aren't meant to be anyway.

"Did you guys ever find out who the drunk was?" Dean asks gently.

Cas furrows his brows and looks up at Dean with watery eyes and then back to the painting, specifically at Micheal.

Dean's stomach drops.

"Let's just say Micheal followed in my father's footsteps for quite a while. He's better now; got his degree in religious psychology and teaches at the highschool in Suffolk county making hundreds of thousands a year," he spits that last part en harsh memoriam.

"Did he not care or something? What's wrong with the guy?" Dean exclaims, becoming frustrated.

"Oh, he did his time. Was supposed to get a life sentence for manslaughter but made it out by studying for his degree and earning a masters. He can barely remember the night though. Says he would feel worse if he could. Fucking liar."

Dean clenches his jaw. What a messed up life this man has had to live. He's gone through more in 24 years than most people have in a lifetime and it scares Dean. Scares him because what happens when this man in his arms that he is so helplessly in love with lets all of this catch up to him. What happens when he drops everything and runs because he can no longer find an escape from the horrifying memories of a life gone awry.

"Who would even agree to paint something like this," Dean asks more of himself than of anyone near, but Cas answers anyway.

"Dad commissioned Gabriel to paint it. Obviously it came out rather biased. It was the only way he's ever been able to bring his rebellion to visuality. He's like that, Gabriel. A visual rebel. I'm more silent, so of course I asked him in secret to make it seem less like I cared and more like I was trying to free myself from my dad's chains," Castiel nods to himself. He...seems proud. Of himself and his brother. "Gabe delivered."

Dean watches Cas as he speaks. Then turns back to the painting.

That's a lot of suffering and a lot of fortitude all in one scene. Dean silently praises Cas and hopes this isn't a fault line he'll have to worry about.

\--

The art is dull compared to Cas when he stands in front of it. Even the most absurdly talented black and white portrait of a homeless woman in China isn't substitute for the beauty Cas eludes. And not once does Cas notice Dean gazing softly at his profile instead of at the painting of a Buddhist child meditating solemnly on a rock in front of a starry sky, or an abstract sunset painted by the first female painter of Bulgaria, Hungary.

Dean thinks he should be damned for appreciating something so simple as a human in the face of something so complex as creativity, but he also thinks he'd be just fine in the fiery depths of hell so long as he still gets to praise that jawline and those chilling blue eyes.

They end up in the statue wing, heavenly marble arches bowing gracefully over their bodies connecting at the hands as they stroll past Greek mythology and infamous war heroes and archaic geniuses. Cas's brows furrow for a moment for he stops short a few feet from a dark grey stone statue, standing 10 feet tall in all its godly glory.

Dean thinks he sees hints of panic in Castiel's eyes, so he turns to get a look for himself and what he finds is a sight he believes is the cause for Cas's sudden trip into oblivion. Poised haughtily above him is a statue of the angel Micheal, crushing his brother Lucifer to hell with his cleated foot. It's a simulacrum recreation of the pious painting of Micheal and Lucifer by Guido Reni.

And it seems to be reminding Cas of the fate of his actual brother, actually named Lucifer.

A tear slips down under Cas's eye, so Dean tilts Cas' head up kisses him softly, and leads Cas away from the memory.

\--

The impala makes a cosy bed for Cas, apparently, and Dean's lap, a pillow. One of his hands grips the wheel as he navigates the loosely controlled back streets of Rockland county, and the other absent-mindedly combs through Castiel's hair.

He hits a stretch of straight road with no significant features and prays he doesn't lull himself to sleep. He slips his hand out of Cas's hair to turn on a hard rock station and turn down the volume so it doesn't wake Cas, and then slides his fingers over Cas's cheek, rough with the shadow of stubble and a few just budding wrinkles. Crows feet. Dean grins.

The fact that Cas smiles so much that he already has permanent memories of each of those smiles is a thought Dean decides to lock away to remember later when he feels sad.

Cas shifts lightly and sighs, nuzzling into Dean's hand. Dean breathes out softly, and rolls his head around, snapping some ligaments in his neck.

Cas mumbles quietly about something to do with his guinea pig.

"Out of carrots...be okay if...go to store," Cas shifts again, turning all the way around to face Dean's stomach. "Dean...need you...want..."

Dean nearly swerves off the road when Cas turns his face down and his lips brush Dean's dick. He clears his throat and fists his hand in Cas's sweater. Cas grumbles again, hand slipping up and hanging on to Dean's thigh, nails scraping his jeans.

"Want you...don't leave..." Cas lets out a breathy moan. Dean's eyes widen.

"Cas?" Dean rasps, gently tapping his friend's shoulder. "Cas, buddy, you gotta not have wet dreams about me while I'm drivin'."

Cas groans and rubs his eye, and looks all of about 4 years old when he does it. Dean strokes his hair lovingly as he opens his eyes.

"Hey there, sleepin' beauty," he whispers and Cas smiles languidly.

"Had a dream about you," Cas mumbles, voice rough.

"I could tell," Dean laughs awkwardly, trying to mask his discomfort - not with Cas but with what's happening in his jeans combined with the fact he's driving and how it's more than a bit distracting.

Cas' eyes narrow and Dean flattens his lips into a line.

"I'm tempted to give you roadhead, but you're already a terrible driver," Cas muses. Dean clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably, sliding his hand to the bottom of the wheel. Cas heaves himself up and kisses just under Dean's jaw, then sits up and starts rifling through his satchel in the back seat.

When he turns around, he's holding a sketchbook and a pack of pencils that each have a different number on them followed by either a 'b' or an 'h'. Dean knits his eyebrows together and replaces his other hand on the wheel.

"What's that all about?"

"Oh, just...I guess a little hobby of mine," Cas replies, and when he open the front cover Dean nearly swerves off the road again. An incredible drawing of a bumblebee nestled in the centre of an unnamable flower peers up at him from the from the first page.

"You?" Dean asks without context, then stumbles for more words. "I mean, you drew that? I thought you said you didn't...art...I mean--"

Cas sighs, flipping through the book.

"I drew it, yes. I guess I'm just still not confident enough to really say I'm an artist."

"Cas, that's fucking awesome," Dean laughs incredulously. "I mean, that's so good. I...I guess I didn't think you were really the artsy type."

Cas chuckles.

"I'm not. I just draw. Otherwise the only 'artsy' thing about me is my modern loft and my Keurig."

Dean falls silent. He doesn't really know what to say. He's always been awkward around men. Women, he can charm like snakes, and he's never really had any experience with genderqueer people. But men he just can't seem to get a grasp of, which is ridiculous, he thinks, because he's a guy. It should be easy. And yet.

"What do you say," Cas interupts, "we go down to the coffee shoppe and top off this date with some hot chocolate or some fancy shit like scones or something."

Dean turns his head fully to look at this man right out of his dreams. Or maybe nightmares.

He smiles and looks back up at the road and replies, "I say that sounds lovely."

\---

The Atomic Bean buzzes with life, driving Dean and Cas into a corner with low lighting and a deep brown love seat. Dean feels more relaxed than ever, arm slung over the back of the couch, Cas leaning into him comfortably, and his hand wrapped loosely around a cup o' joe resting on the arm table. He doesn't really want to move either, which is saying something considering he's been feeling a bit too on the go recently. He hadn't realized how much he needed a break - the library might not be the busiest place but he mustered the guts to go in and apply for that job as a male stripper and the club was insane, and he also managed to somehow start wearing himself out at the gym which he's admittedly been neglecting to visit anyway.

But here and now is so perfect he thinks he could leave it all behind, just sit here for the rest of his life and grow old next to this man who smells like honey and fresh laundry and vaguely of cat. He could sit here and talk about nothing and just sip his coffee and not have a care in the fucking world as long as this random author's son is sitting here with him.

"Tonight's open mic," Cas brings up casually, as if he's talking about the weather. Dean knows he means 'I want to see you go up and sing'. "Think you're man enough?" He teases.

Dean smiles lightly and shakes his head.

"I don't know. There're a lot of people."

"Come on. For me. You can just...I don't know, concentrate on me. I'll be watching, I promise," Cas coaxes. Anxiety wells in Dean's stomach, though that may in part be due to the 3 Irish coffees he's had. The lady singing right now has a high, lilting voice filled with with lilacs and sunshine and a Disney princess vibrato. He's sung with larger crowds, but the thought of Cas being there while he's strumming a guitar and singing his heart out to a song that encapsulates his current emotions is more daunting than it should be.

Doesn't mean he's not tempted by the challenge. He wonders if .38 Special is appropriate for a coffee shoppe.

The song ends and the lady gets a near standing ovation. It's now or never.

Dean takes a steadying breath in and pushes up from his seat with a buzzed grunt. Hurries over to the karaoke manager. She hands him a deep, cherrywood acoustic with brass strings and a copper headplate and he shuffles onto the stage. Pulls a stool up to the mic.

He makes sure the guitar is tuned and then clears his throat, peering up through his lashes to make sure Cas is watching. The man has a curious, challenging look in his eyes, but he's smiling adoringly.

Dean begins to strum the guitar, tentatively, then more thoughtfully, careful to keep his head bowed humbly.

_I never knew there'd come a day when I'd be saying to you..._

His voice crackles a bit, but he hasn't been singing much lately so he's got no one to blame but himself. As for the butterflies bumping around the inside of his stomach right now? That's all Cas. And goddamnit, he's not used to this.

_Don't let this good love slip away, now that we know that it's true._

He peeks up at Cas again, and watches the man's face sink from defiance to reverence as he pours out his soul into a gravelly voice meant for rock and roll and angry love songs.

_Don't, don't you know the kind of man I am? Mm, said I'd never fall in love again..._

He holds Castiel's angelic gaze without regret for the situation he's gotten himself into.

_But it's real and the feeling comes shining through.  
I'm so caught up in you, little girl, and I never did suspect a thing._

Cas smirks which somehow supplies Dean with a new sense of importance and cockiness that he uses to sing his heart out.

_I'm so caught up in you, little girl, that never wanna get myself clean.  
And baby it's true - you're the one who caught me, baby, you taught me how good it could be_

And when Dean finishes the song people whoop and cheer and one girl in the crowd screams 'yas bitch' and he exits stage right, Cas stands, abadoning their coffee to calmly walk to him, take his hand without a word, and walk out of the shoppe.


End file.
